Guides
The new-hire checklist for a moving company, explained
Moving company staff training as a four-week checklist: yard skills, walkthrough and inventory, stairs and specialty items, and the customer rules a lead must hold.
What to take away
- Training a mover is four weeks of checklists, each signed off by a crew lead who watched the skill performed on a real job.
- Week one is the yard and the truck. Week two is the walkthrough and the inventory. Week three is access: stairs, long carries, elevators, and the pieces that need two people and a plan. Week four is the customer.
- The customer-packed carton and the pre-existing damage photograph are the two items new movers most often skip, and the two that cost the most when skipped.
- A checklist item is complete when the lead has seen it done under pressure, not when the trainee says they understand it.
How to use the lists
Each item is signed by the lead with the date and the job number where it was observed. A trainee not observed on an item is not trained on it, whatever they say, and items carry forward until signed.
At the end of week four, the lead recommends keep, extend, or release. This decision uses the same job-sheet evidence as the how to hire reliable staff trial-month evaluation.
Week 1: the yard and the truck
- Can perform and record the pre-trip vehicle walk-around.
- Counts pads on and off and writes the count.
- Wraps a dresser, a mirror, a mattress, and a sofa by the yard's method.
- Loads a dolly correctly and takes it up and down the ramp with a real load.
- Ties a load off with straps at the right intervals and explains why.
- Knows where every item in the equipment and setup guide list lives on the truck and what each is for.
- Lifts by the yard's method and refuses a lift that needs two people.
Week 2: the walkthrough and the inventory
- Walks the origin with the survey in hand and identifies items not on it.
- Photographs pre-existing damage with the customer present and says why.
- Inspects customer-packed cartons and can explain, in plain words, why an over-full or under-taped carton will not be loaded until it is fixed.
- Applies inventory tags and writes condition codes that another person can read.
- Bags hardware and attaches it to the piece it belongs to.
- Plans a load order from the survey so the destination's first room comes off first.
Week 3: access
- Carries the correct end on a flight of stairs and calls the steps for the partner.
- Runs a long carry with floor runners down and a relay point set.
- Pads an elevator and loads it to the building's rules.
- Moves a piano or a safe only as the second person on a trained lead's plan, and can describe the plan afterward.
- Recognizes when the truck cannot reach the door and knows the shuttle procedure.
- Reports a near-miss to the lead the same day.
Week 4: the customer
- Greets the customer, confirms the room plan, and does not discuss the price.
- Explains what the walkthrough is for in one sentence a customer accepts.
- Records damage found at delivery on the inventory before the customer signs.
- Walks the customer through the empty truck at the end.
- Knows what to say and what not to say when a customer asks about a claim: the process, not an opinion on the outcome.
- Completes the close-out job sheet with hours by phase and deviations from the survey.
The lead's own list
A crew lead is trained on everything above plus:
- Reading a survey and a crew sheet, and briefing the crew before departure.
- Running the five checkpoints and signing each with a time.
- Deciding on a customer-packed carton and recording the decision.
- Calling dispatch for a change order before out-of-scope work starts.
- Managing the crew's pace on a stacked day without cutting padding.
- Delivering the callback-ready closenothing left for the office to discover.
The lead differential and how it is paid are part of the pay rates and labor costs discussion; the point here is that the differential buys the six items above.
The rules the training must respect
Training is employment, and it sits under the same rules as everything else. The U.S. Department of Labor's guidance for new and small businesses covers wage, overtime, and timekeeping duties. Training hours are hours; whether they are paid is not a yard-policy question.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's small business resource center covers accommodations and nondiscrimination. That matters for the physical items in weeks one and three: apply them consistently and relate them to the job. State rules add to both.
Wages for the trainee and the lead should be set against the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage tables, which publish metropolitan-area estimates for movers, drivers, and helpers, alongside the yard's own break-even.
Training in a second yard
A new market has no trained lead to sign the lists, which is why the expansion and market guide counts a lead's month away from the first yard as a cost of opening. Send the lists with the lead. The standard travels on paper and in a person, never in a name on a truck.
Keep the signed lists
Signed checklists go in the employee's file. They are the training record, the evidence in a dispute about what a mover was told, and the material the hiring and training guide uses to decide who becomes the next lead.
Common questions
Four weeks seems long. Can it be compressed?
For a seasonal hire with prior experience, weeks one and two can run in one. Weeks three and four are where claims come from and should not be shortened.
What if no lead is available to sign?
Then the item is not signed. An unsigned item is a known gap, which is better than an assumed skill.
Should trainees be on stacked days?
Not in week one. From week three, yes, because the stacked day is where the skill is tested.
How do I train an estimator?
Differently. An estimator is trained on the survey, the rate sheet, and the estimate types, and is measured on the variance between surveyed and actual hours. That is a separate list.
